On Sunday, the first day of the New Year, the preacher encouraged us to be optimistic in 2012. Ask yourself, he said, in your life what deflated optimism the most last year?
My answer: Last year’s chief obstacle to optimism was pessimism. I spent far too much time worrying instead of focusing on living one day at a time. I vowed to replace pessimism with optimism.
A friend’s message awaiting me when I returned from church dealt my vow a devastating setback. It contained frightening statistical data generated by various think tanks.
For instance, the message pointed out that forty-eight percent of all Americans subsist on low income, or live in poverty, and job seekers average forty weeks in their search for work.
My income is woefully low, but at least I’m working, and I despise government handouts and bailouts. I’ll make it on my own. But if the data previously cited is accurate, roughly fifty-percent of potential voters have reason to favor wealth redistribution — the socialistic juggernaut that may cause Europe’s collapse in the coming year.
My friend’s message also noted that the ratio of household debt to personal income in America is now 154 percent, which means that for every $100 I earn, I’ll owe a little over one and a half times that amount to someone else — and that is only if no unforeseen financial setbacks pop up in 2012. In my experience, hardly a month goes by without at least one unforeseen financial setback, especially in light of skyrocketing health care costs, which have risen to sixteen percent, from ten percent in 1980.
As is the case with most working folks, a big chunk of my paychecks covers mortgage payments. Hopefully, I’ll amortize the debt before I croak so that I can leave the property debt-free to my kids. But even if I do, what will it be worth? All across the country, home prices are declining — especially in formerly affluent states like California, which I now call “Nannyfornia.” And, unbelievably, in the once thriving city of Detroit, average home values are now $6000.
My children are gainfully employed, and manage to maintain fairly comfortable lifestyles … with occasional help from Dad, but I would certainly have cause for pessimism if they were in the dire straits of many metropolitan-area children: In Philadelphia, 36% of all children live in abject poverty; in Atlanta, 40%; in Detroit, 54%.
My pessimism spiked when I read this part of my friend’s message: The national debt has increased by an average of more than four billion dollars every day since November 2008, and since then, the government has accumulated more debt than it did from the year that George Washington began his presidency to the time that Bill Clinton debauched the Oval Office. In other words, the amount of debt accumulated in two hundred years has been matched in a mere four years.
So, how will I enter this New Year with an optimistic frame of mind? You tell me.
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
